Reviews of Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire (2023) and related work
- Sequel: Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)
Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire (2023
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Seen in 2024.
By chance, the evil galactic empire messes with the wrong ethnically diverse Medieval Norse farming village.
It’s like Seven Samurai (1954), but with a bad script, bad acting, bad practical effects (that is, if you count Titus’s beard wig), and good CGI.
‣ Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)
Seen in 2024.
It turns out that Kora, the main character, only thought she killed the magical princess of the galaxy, just like she only thought she killed the evil Admiral Noble (sic) in the first movie.
Ah yes, it’s no proper rip-off of Star Wars (1977) and its sequels unless the audience is cheated by characters unexpectedly recovering from death. There are some neat mechanical designs and Snyder’s usual juicy action schtick, but the narrative can’t support its own weight. By the end, Kora the heroine laments the loss of Gunnar, her hot bad boy with whom she has no chemistry. Maybe he’s dead, maybe not; there is no way for the audience to know and no reason to care. Anyway, she asks rhetorically why she can’t have “this one thing”, after a life full of improbable luck, great privilege, mind-boggling talent and only occasional Mary Sue misery. If you want a solid 2024 science-fantasy melodrama with a female action hero captured as a child and raised by a fascist, skip this and watch Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.